Drum Modules and Triggers.

[BOWIE]

Originally Posted by DonnyBrookson

Hey there:

I have a few bands that want me to record them and I want to do a good job.

I know for a drum sound to be good, the room has to be good and I don't have access to that type of room.
So I am considering buying a drum module and triggers as oppose to starting a drum mic collection, maybe save a few dollars that can be put elsewhere like a nice pre.

Any advice on whether or not this is a good path for me would be great. Not sure a mixture of mics and triggers would be appropriate??

Check out the drum section here. The fellas there can help.
I recently got into electronic drums and it was just as much of a pain in the ass as real drums IMO. You have to have a really good module, the drums/pads themselves have to be high-end or they won't pick up the player's dynamics and will not feel natural for them.

[DonnyBrookson]

Ok thanks for the heads up.

[zeppe]

I bought an Alesis DM5 and two DDrum triggers(snare/kick) and have used them quite a bit, mainly on metal stuff and for drummers with crap sounding kits. They are useful although they do take a while to setup. Nice to have the options.

I think my next purchase is to get a dedicated studio drum kit, well tuned, great kick and snare, vintage if possible..I think I will get more use out of it and will save me some headaches in the mixing stages.

[58lespaul]

How about a program like drumagog? When it came to drums I was going to go one of two paths:

Buy a shitty kit and then just use drumagog on it to replace the shittyness

or

Buy an electric kit to trigger EZDrummer (plan to upgrade to Superior once I have the $$$)

I went with the latter and it has worked out well for me (hit-hat pedal is a little shitty)... then again I am primarily a guitarist and I know how anal drummers are about feel and not playing an acoustic drum set.

[Addni]

Well, first take a look at some great trigger-free options like Drumagog or Toontrack Drumtracker, just record the mics and replace. Although triggers are great, I use triggers much when mixing live gigs and crappy bands bring pieces of shit drum kits. Then i use TDrum triggers either into a DDrum 3 module (oh what a great piece of gear) my friend has, or into Alesis DMPro, connected to Superior Drummer 2.0.

For studio only:

TDrum Triggers (exact replica of the DDrum, same parts, same box, different color and different name), a bit cheaper than DDrum.

Plug them straight into your preamps, then use drumtracker og drumagog to replace the trigger signal with some real sounds.

Could use one overhead, and then "type in" the cymbals afterwards, or use a pair of OH and actually use those.


If you want a module:
Nothing compares to the DDrum modules, but they don't make those anymore. I've heard the Alesis makes a pretty nice and cheap module named "Alesis Trigger I/O" that has no memory, it just turns triggers into MIDI, you're not paying for being able to load samples into it (that you'll never use anyway)

[DonnyBrookson]

Okay thanks for the info I will research the gear mentioned above and see what I should go for.

I do use Artist Drums in Cubase atm and I can get some good sounding kits out of that, it's just the triggering I need to work out.

Originally Posted by 58lespaul

Buy a shitty kit and then just use drumagog on it to replace the shittyness

So I can use mic's as the triggers? I want the drummers to play their own kits so they feel comfortable and play well, and then replace the sounds later in mixing.

[58lespaul]

Yup, from what I have seen you don't need triggers with Drumagog. You just need to make sure the pieces you want replaced are individually miked (one mic for snare, one mic for kick... etc etc).

You can try it out for free so why not test it out and see if that fits your needs.

Drumagog Drum Replacer Plug-In

[donsolo]

You know, around here you can book a room for a day for the cost of an SM7B.

If you go to a nice room to do just drum tracks, you can crank them out if the drummer is any good.